Binaural , Ambisonics , Q-Sound

[Pontoneer]

I was over visiting my mum for Christmas ; whilst upstairs I was in my old bedroom and came across my old Sennheisser HD 424 headphones . I used these a lot for nighttime listening , and they are still great .

I remember that Sennheiser made some promotional records that were recorded in Binaural sound , which gave a 3D surround type effect ; I possibly have somewhere a cassette tape recorded off air from a BBC broadcast , made in Binaural , about the Battle of Britain , and it was truly amazing .

I think the BBC Binaural recordings were made in collaboration with Professor Peter Felgett of Reading University , professor of cybernetics , who pioneered Ambisonic recordings , used by the BBC and the Calrec Soundfield microphone ( a tetrahedral array ) ; I used to correspond with him back in the 1970s and he was a very approachable guy .

Anyway , I don't have any binaural or ambisonic recordings to hand , but I do have Paula Abdul's album Spellbound , which was recorded in Q-Sound , which through phase shifting , gives an amazing surround effect just using a stereo pair of loudspeakers ; not sure why it never caught on ...

It isn't so great on headphones , but these old Sennheissers are just as wonderful as I remembered them to be , only ever bettered by a pair of Stax Electrostatics I had later on ,

I still prefer listening on loudspeakers , although headphones are handy for late night listening when you don't want to disturb others .

 

[GOS]

I was over visiting my mum for Christmas ; whilst upstairs I was in my old bedroom and came across my old Sennheisser HD 424 headphones . I used these a lot for nighttime listening , and they are still great .

I remember that Sennheiser made some promotional records that were recorded in Binaural sound , which gave a 3D surround type effect ; I possibly have somewhere a cassette tape recorded off air from a BBC broadcast , made in Binaural , about the Battle of Britain , and it was truly amazing .

I think the BBC Binaural recordings were made in collaboration with Professor Peter Felgett of Reading University , professor of cybernetics , who pioneered Ambisonic recordings , used by the BBC and the Calrec Soundfield microphone ( a tetrahedral array ) ; I used to correspond with him back in the 1970s and he was a very approachable guy .

Anyway , I don't have any binaural or ambisonic recordings to hand , but I do have Paula Abdul's album Spellbound , which was recorded in Q-Sound , which through phase shifting , gives an amazing surround effect just using a stereo pair of loudspeakers ; not sure why it never caught on ...

It isn't so great on headphones , but these old Sennheissers are just as wonderful as I remembered them to be , only ever bettered by a pair of Stax Electrostatics I had later on ,

I still prefer listening on loudspeakers , although headphones are handy for late night listening when you don't want to disturb others .

I'm curious, how come those headphones didn't follow you when you moved out? The only thing in my old bedroom, is literally just junk. School papers, drawings from art, etc. All my music stuff? No chance, it all came with me.

 

[The Pink Floyd]

I was over visiting my mum for Christmas ; whilst upstairs I was in my old bedroom and came across my old Sennheisser HD 424 headphones . I used these a lot for nighttime listening , and they are still great .

I remember that Sennheiser made some promotional records that were recorded in Binaural sound , which gave a 3D surround type effect ; I possibly have somewhere a cassette tape recorded off air from a BBC broadcast , made in Binaural , about the Battle of Britain , and it was truly amazing .

I think the BBC Binaural recordings were made in collaboration with Professor Peter Felgett of Reading University , professor of cybernetics , who pioneered Ambisonic recordings , used by the BBC and the Calrec Soundfield microphone ( a tetrahedral array ) ; I used to correspond with him back in the 1970s and he was a very approachable guy .

Anyway , I don't have any binaural or ambisonic recordings to hand , but I do have Paula Abdul's album Spellbound , which was recorded in Q-Sound , which through phase shifting , gives an amazing surround effect just using a stereo pair of loudspeakers ; not sure why it never caught on ...

It isn't so great on headphones , but these old Sennheissers are just as wonderful as I remembered them to be , only ever bettered by a pair of Stax Electrostatics I had later on ,

I still prefer listening on loudspeakers , although headphones are handy for late night listening when you don't want to disturb others .

Roger Waters used Q-Sound on "The Pro's And Con's Of Hitchhiking" and "Amused To Death".
I used to work in a Hi-Fi shop in the suburb's of Chicago and we would crank up ATD and it always amazed me the way some of the sound effects seemed to come from anywhere but the speakers.
He also did a live broadcast from Radio City Music Hall on the PAC tour using a special Q-Sound mic he called (or maybe it was named) RINGO.

 

[gene_stl]

Professor Fellgett was a polymath and quantified some advances in optical spectroscopy. Fellgett's Advantage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellgett's_advantage
Fellgett's Advantage started to be talked about when the detectors in spectrophotometers became CCDs and CMOS multiple elements as opposed to earlier where they were phototubes and photomultipliers. It actually was not terribly unlike the analog versus digital difference except nobody was making moronic pronouncements. Also when someone figured out Fourier Transform Spectroscopy.

 

[J. PUPSTER]

I did an Advanced search on discogs with "Ambisonic" in the Format section and it delivered 888 returns.
https://www.discogs.com/search/?type=all&format=Ambisonic
Now many of those are different releases of the same title, others are things like a Contributor's name or other; and I'm sure a lot of that stuff is also Classical genre with the Ambisonic used for room/venue acoustics mainly.

But I need to narrow it down and look closer, there could be some interesting stuff in there like this one:
https://www.discogs.com/release/15621568-Kate-Bush-The-Whole-Story
But not everything in discogs is labeled as Ambisonic, like this Cowboy Junkies-
https://www.discogs.com/release/9586995-Cowboy-Junkies-The-Trinity-Session
Need to cross reference some of these to get additional verification in Mark Anderson's Discography for Ambisonic (because that Kate Bush doesn't show up in his list ); and heck there's probably a thread here with listings also, I don't remember.

http://www.surrounddiscography.com/uhjdisc/uhjhtm.htm

 

[J. PUPSTER]

After some basic research, here's one I'm going to try (I'll just try it through the SMv2 in QS) but I'd bet it'll sound pretty surroundy from what I heard on YouTube:

https://www.discogs.com/release/4473713-Keith-Mansfield-The-Video-Connection

 

[doity]

I’ve got quite a few of these kinds of cassettes. I had helped with going through the belongings of a longtime collector to see what was worth selling and what was not. He had loads of binaural, and related technologies, on cassette tapes. A lot of factory made and some homemade.

I never got around to really seeing what all of the fuss was, but when I did I was not really wowed by it so I kind of forgot about them. Here is just a few of them that I have.

 

[Pontoneer]

I'm curious, how come those headphones didn't follow you when you moved out? The only thing in my old bedroom, is literally just junk. School papers, drawings from art, etc. All my music stuff? No chance, it all came with me.

There is LOTS of stuff still over there , including old hifi equipment, cameras , tools etc ...

 

[doity]

Here is one of those titles that I did put up on YouTube just because it was so damned weird. Not sure if the binaural effects survived the upload, but just by listening it seems to have.

I listened a bit with eyes closed and it was weird..... I was getting both left and right imaging, but also center. Weird.

 

[Mark Anderson]

I did an Advanced search on discogs with "Ambisonic" in the Format section and it delivered 888 returns.
https://www.discogs.com/search/?type=all&format=Ambisonic
Now many of those are different releases of the same title, others are things like a Contributor's name or other; and I'm sure a lot of that stuff is also Classical genre with the Ambisonic used for room/venue acoustics mainly.

I see so many things listed incorrectly on discogs as ambisonic, even mono recordings. I can almost guarantee the kate Bush is not UHJ. Best place to start is the Ambisonic Discography that has been peer reviewed by folks on the ambi sursound email group. I have not updated it 8 years but any additions I know about are obscure classical or electronic and no big name artists to add.
Someone mention Nimbus stopped UHJ encoding in '95 and I do not believe that to be true as they know they have a killer mike setup and how the encoding makes the recordings sound great even in stereo. They just got more lax with labeling and I know of titles being done as late as 2008

 

[Mark Anderson]

Below is a link to a 1990 Nimbus promo video provided by Eero Aro on the sursound email group that is fun to watch and listen too.
---------------------------------------------
Hi All
I uploaded a Nimbus Records Ambisonics promotion video into YouTube:

All audio in the video is UHJ encoded Ambisonics. The video includes presentation about Ambisonics and several video/audio clips, for example from a concert, Zoo, steam railway and from the Farnborough Air Show.

Eero
_____________________________________________
Sursound mailing list
[email protected]
Sursound Info Page - unsubscribe here, edit account or options, view archives and so on.

 

[gene_stl]

I am listening to the video on headphones and I am wondering , does a UHJ encoded ambisonic track require a UHJ decoder if it is listened to through headphones? If so was this program decoded through a decoder and then synced with the video in two channel stereo? The room they are in is very reverberant. Undoubtedly on purpose.


I just got two Zenph "re-recordings" which both have binaural versions of their programs on the CD. One is Sergey Rachmanianoff doing some piano numbers and one is Oscar Peterson doing the same thing. The programs are repeated in binaural but it does not mention any particular encoding nor use the word ambisonic.

 

[J. PUPSTER]

I see so many things listed incorrectly on discogs as ambisonic, even mono recordings. I can almost guarantee the kate Bush is not UHJ. Best place to start is the Ambisonic Discography that has been peer reviewed by folks on the ambi sursound email group. I have not updated it 8 years but any additions I know about are obscure classical or electronic and no big name artists to add.
Someone mention Nimbus stopped UHJ encoding in '95 and I do not believe that to be true as they know they have a killer mike setup and how the encoding makes the recordings sound great even in stereo. They just got more lax with labeling and I know of titles being done as late as 2008

Here's a Nimbus (1992) for you to check out Mark, didn't see it in your Discography

https://www.discogs.com/release/2496779-Richard-Robbins-Howards-End-Original-Soundtrack-Recording

 

[doity]

I am listening to the video on headphones and I am wondering , does a UHJ encoded ambisonic track require a UHJ decoder if it is listened to through headphones? If so was this program decoded through a decoder and then synced with the video in two channel stereo? The room they are in is very reverberant. Undoubtedly on purpose.


I just got two Zenph "re-recordings" which both have binaural versions of their programs on the CD. One is Sergey Rachmanianoff doing some piano numbers and one is Oscar Peterson doing the same thing. The programs are repeated in binaural but it does not mention any particular encoding nor use the word ambisonic.

I really didn’t know much about UHJ besides just seeing the term(s) thrown around here and there. After looking into it the technology does sound intriguing, but of course good luck tracking down the equipment. No wonder these formats never took off.....besides the technical mumbo-jumbo that is confusing to someone who is already well versed in “quad speak”, you have to have a special box with multiple dials and switches to be able to hear it.

The average person just wants to put the tape/album/CD in and hit play. Of course there are people like us who love multiple knobs, buttons and displays, but we are the vast minority. Oh well, another oddball technology that got lost in the shuffle.

 

[stevendive]

I see so many things listed incorrectly on discogs as ambisonic, even mono recordings. I can almost guarantee the kate Bush is not UHJ. Best place to start is the Ambisonic Discography that has been peer reviewed by folks on the ambi sursound email group. I have not updated it 8 years but any additions I know about are obscure classical or electronic and no big name artists to add.
Someone mention Nimbus stopped UHJ encoding in '95 and I do not believe that to be true as they know they have a killer mike setup and how the encoding makes the recordings sound great even in stereo. They just got more lax with labeling and I know of titles being done as late as 2008

It’s good to know Nimbus may still be releasing ambisonic recordings. Still UHJ? I will try contacting them again. I never really got on with their Nimbus-Halliday mic ambi recordings, as right hand side imaging seemed quite poor to me. They used a Soundfield (450?) for some tracks on a sampler CD, a good few years ago, that were much better. I wonder what their killer mic is.

 

[stevendive]

I am listening to the video on headphones and I am wondering , does a UHJ encoded ambisonic track require a UHJ decoder if it is listened to through headphones? If so was this program decoded through a decoder and then synced with the video in two channel stereo? The room they are in is very reverberant. Undoubtedly on purpose.


I just got two Zenph "re-recordings" which both have binaural versions of their programs on the CD. One is Sergey Rachmanianoff doing some piano numbers and one is Oscar Peterson doing the same thing. The programs are repeated in binaural but it does not mention any particular encoding nor use the word ambisonic.

You don’t use a decoder for UHJ via headphones, just standard stereo playback. UHJ is designed for playback over 4 or more loudspeakers, via a UHJ processor. Over headphones in stereo it should sound fine, just not surround.

As for heavy sounding reverb, this can be distracting when it’s all folded into the stereo front sector when played back in standard stereo. Then again, some of Nimbus’s UHJ recordings are made in pretty reverby rooms and sound still very reverberant when played back on, at least my, ambisonic setup.

 

[stevendive]

I really didn’t know much about UHJ besides just seeing the term(s) thrown around here and there. After looking into it the technology does sound intriguing, but of course good luck tracking down the equipment. No wonder these formats never took off.....besides the technical mumbo-jumbo that is confusing to someone who is already well versed in “quad speak”, you have to have a special box with multiple dials and switches to be able to hear it.

The average person just wants to put the tape/album/CD in and hit play. Of course there are people like us who love multiple knobs, buttons and displays, but we are the vast minority. Oh well, another oddball technology that got lost in the shuffle.

If anyone wants decent ambisonic processors that operate as easyish hi-fi units then any pre used or current new Meridian DSPs will do it, though the latter ones are costly.

Once a Meridian DSP is set up, which takes a little time and patience, that’s it done. You only have to select your customised ambisonic setting and listen. Ideally, some attention is needed to basic requirements for ambisonic (UHJ or B-Format), but these are straightforward.

 

[Mark Anderson]

I contacted Nimbus in the late '90's and posted their response on the UHJ discography. They explained the mike setups

Nimbus Records Ambisonic UHJ Discography

 

[gene_stl]

Very nice document. Saved to computer. Thank you!

 

[J. PUPSTER]

If anyone wants decent ambisonic processors that operate as easyish hi-fi units then any pre used or current new Meridian DSPs will do it, though the latter ones are costly.

Once a Meridian DSP is set up, which takes a little time and patience, that’s it done. You only have to select your customised ambisonic setting and listen. Ideally, some attention is needed to basic requirements for ambisonic (UHJ or B-Format), but these are straightforward.

What I’d really like to find is a VST plugin for a DAW like Reaper; I’m not really wanting to spend $5-600 for another used piece of gear. Do you know of any?